Reflections on screen-sharing

Vidrio for Mac’s Pro plan is now available on the Mac App Store. It’s an in-app purchase. To get started, select “Get Vidrio Pro ...” from the Vidrio menu. For more info, see upgrading to Pro.

Vidrio for Windows finally hits the big v1.0! It's got everything you need to make awesome presentations on Windows: background removal, screen recording, and solid performance and stability. Thanks to all of the alpha and beta testers along the way!

Previously, Vidrio for Windows would appear on your "primary display". But you screencast wizards love your screens and want Vidrio on all of them! Vidrio for Windows v0.17 now has a drop-down where you can select the display you want Vidrio to appear on. (And if you record your screen, it will record that display.)

When presenting as a "weathercaster", you could sometimes block the presentation for your audience. Vidrio for Windows now has a unique solution to this problem: the X-Ray pointer! When you move your mouse pointer around, it will reveal your presentation, using the power of X-Rays! ⚡

New Vidrio users are often not sure how to get started. Vidrio now has an onboarding window with some short, quick tips. Vidrio also now has an update flow built into the app.

Vidrio's control window has a fresh new look. It should be more useable, with everything properly labelled.

Previously, Vidrio for Windows would forget your configuration when you closed it. Now, Vidrio remembers all of your settings between runs. Just start Vidrio and get going!

Previously, if you wanted to record your Vidrio presentation, you would have to use an external screen recording program. But Vidrio for Windows 0.12 now has a built-in screen recorder, so everything you need is now in Vidrio!

Select "Automagic background removal" in the Vidrio control window, then open weather.com — congratulations 🎉, you're now a weathercaster! No green screen required (but if you have one, we support that too!).

Fetch your green screen (or blue screen, or any other color!), check "Chroma key" in the Vidrio control window, then open weather.com — congratulations 🎉, you're now a weathercaster! And unlike old-time weathercasters, you can change your size and position with the swipe of a slider.

With v0.9, you can move your face around your screen! Click “Move/Resize” or hit ctrl + alt + M, then use the mouse to drag your face around! This lets you use Vidrio for a more traditional “webcam in the corner” look, which can be more appropriate for some kinds of content. Check out the feature in action:

Pause/Resume now has a lovely fading animation. Shouldn’t everything be animated?

Vidrio for Windows now has a Pause/Resume button in the controls! You can use this when presenting busy or intricate content, or during a part of the presentation where your webcam video is not needed. This is tied to a global keyboard shortcut: ctrl + alt + p.

Vidrio for Mac now works with virtual cameras. This lets you use new video sources, and new filters, in Vidrio. For example, you can now use Iriun Webcam to use your mobile phone’s camera instead of your built-in camera, or Masks in ManyCam for crazy special effects! Here’s me presenting the USA’s latest COVID-19 rates wearing a Trump mask:

Vidrio for Windows would previously request the highest possible resolution from your webcam. In some cases, this would lead to poor performance (high latency, low frame rate), for very little gain in quality. As of Vidrio for Windows v0.6, Vidrio for Windows requests a more appropriate resolution, meaning low latency and smooth frame rate for everyone 🚀

Fetch your green screen, check "Remove background" in the Vidrio menu, then open weather.com — congratulations 🎉, you're now a weathercaster! And unlike old-time weathercasters, you can change your size and position with the swipe of a slider.

Vidrio’s keyboard shortcuts have been completely rewritten, and are much friendlier! 🎉

This was a small bug-fix release! Nothing to see here.

Many of you have a plethora of webcams: virtual webcams, multiple displays with multiple webcams, and front-facing and rear-facing webcams. Vidrio for Windows 0.4 would just select a default webcam. The most requested feature is now here: you can switch webcam using the drop-down in the Vidrio UI. Remember: Vidrio works best with the webcam directly above your shared screen!

The technical foundations of Vidrio for Windows have been laid. Versions 0.1 to 0.3 were private alpha. Today’s version 0.4 is the first public alpha, available for everyone. It’s missing many features of Vidrio for Mac, but the core functionality is there: a holographic display that you can use with Teams, Zoom, Skype, and any screen recorders.

More translations!:

Significant new feature alert! Many of you folks use multiple displays, but Vidrio didn’t play nicely with them. It would just display on the first screen it found, with the size of the display with the current keyboard focus. Rather odd behavior, and the only “workaround” was to unplug your external displays.

Some of y’all were denying Vidrio access to the camera when launching it. It should come as no surprise that, without access to the camera, Vidrio can’t work very well. Still, Vidrio used to react rather passive-aggressively to you denying camera permissions: it would just quitting without telling you why. In v1.16, Vidrio acts more politely, and opens the relevant Security & Privacy pane for you.

More translations!:

Another translation: swiknaba contributed a Chinese translation! Xièxiè! 🤩

Wonderful people have contributed more translations!:

Damiano Donati contributed an Italian translation! Perfect for all the Italians dutifully working from home! Thanks Dam 😊

Sophie Lantreibecq contributed a French translation of the in-app text! Thanks!! 😊 Vidrio is now i18n..ized (?), and you can contribute more translations here!

During usability testing (i.e.: watching people use Vidrio), I noticed that for new users, it wasn’t at all clear what you’re supposed to do. “Okay, it shows me my face. How do I control it? What do I do next?”

In v1.4 we added a “switch webcam” feature, but it didn’t remember your choice: when you restarted Vidrio, it would revert to the default webcam. How annoying. But now, Vidrio remembers your webcam choice! Thanks Kevin Norman for advocating and testing the feature 🥰

Fixed Vidrio’s icon for dark mode! Vidrio’s icon was previously black-on-transparent. As you can imagine, in Dark Mode, this made the icon nearly impossible to see. As a result, some people couldn’t find how to quit Vidrio, and had their face showing forever. Ouch.

Nothing much happened here, to be honest. Please move along and have a nice day.

I added a keyboard shortcut for pause/unpause. It’s Fn+Ctrl+p. Fair warning: keyboard shortcuts are still very beta. Stay tuned.

The Vidrio menu now shows the running version, and checks whether it’s running the latest version. If it’s not the latest version, it prompts you to visit the website to upgrade.

Added a “switch webcam” feature! If you have multiple webcams, you can choose the preferred one from the Vidrio menu in the top-right. Remember: Vidrio works best with the webcam directly above your shared screen.